John Busby will be the man in charge when Rovers head to The Valley on Saturday for their first away match of the 2020/21 Sky Bet League One campaign.
It’s been 59 weeks since the Oxfordshire-born official last blew the whistle at a Rovers match as he was the in charge on Rovers' opening day clash with Gillingham in 2019/20.
Kieran Sadlier’s volley earned Rovers earned a 1-1 draw that day and Busby handed out just one yellow card which went to The Gills’ Barry Fuller. That was to be Busby’s lowest card tally that season as he went on to hand out at least two cards in each of his remaining 32 games. In total he awarded 123 yellows and five reds across 33 matches.
Busby is in his fifth season on the National List of Referees, but this will be just the fifth time he’s overseen Rovers. Until the Gillingham match, Busby had a remarkable record of every Rovers match he took charge of ending 4-0 - though Rovers weren’t always on the right end of the score line.
On Saturday, Busby will be assisted by Paul Kelly and Anthony da Costa and the fourth official will be Scott Williams.
